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After several days of sporadic and confusing statements, the chairman of Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway (MMA) was finally pinned down in a Lac-Mégantic street by reporters on Wednesday. The chaotic news conference that ensued was unplanned, unscripted and ran for nearly 45 minutes, with Edward Burkhardt attempting to set the record straight on a number of issues. The small town east of Montreal has been in a constant state of flux, with authorities updating their facts almost hourly as their investigation has progressed. While Burkhardt has been forced to contend with this same uncertainty, his public statements since Saturday have been often contradictory and sometimes inflammatory. Here is what the chairman has said about several key elements:

THE BRAKES

Wednesday: Burkhardt told reporters that he is now certain that not enough manual handbrakes were applied to the train before it was left unattended. If they had been tied down as required, the derailment would never have occurred, he stated.

Previous statement(s): Earlier this week, Burkhardt told the Wall Street Journal that handbrakes had been tied down on all five locomotives and “five or six” more on individual tanker cars. He then told a Radio-Canada reporter in Chicago that his company should not be blamed for the disaster.

SABOTAGE

Wednesday: Burkhardt said there is no reason to suspect the train was sabotaged.

Previous statement(s): Burkhardt told The Gazette earlier that he was certain the MMA train had been tampered with. “We have evidence of this,” he said. “But this is an item that needs further investigation.”

THE ENGINEER

Wednesday: Burkhardt placed the blame for the accident squarely on the shoulders of his own employee, off-duty MMA engineer Tom Harding — even implying that Harding had lied to authorities. He added that Harding has been suspended without pay, but not fired. “I think (the engineer) did something wrong,” the chairman said. “He told us that he applied 11 handbrakes and our general feeling is now that that is not true.”

Previous statement(s): Burkhardt originally stated that the MMA engineer did his job properly. Another MMA spokesperson, Yves Bourdon, said Harding even acted heroically by approaching theburning tanker cars and pulling off nine wagons that might also have explodedif they had been left where they were. “He’s a very conscientious person,” Bourdon said.

FIREFIGHTERS

Wednesday: Fire officials followed procedure when they responded to a small blaze on one of the train’s locomotives after being alerted around 11:30 p.m. Friday, Burkhardt told the media. While the intervention shut down the train’s air brake system, he added, that should not have led to the train rolling away. “Were they negligent in their tampering? I think not.”

Previous statement(s): Burkhardt suggested to The Gazette and several other media outlets this week that firefighters responding to the blaze were to blame for the derailment. “They went out there by themselves, shut the engine off, doused the fire,” he told The Globe and Mail. He later acknowledged that two other MMA employees had, in fact, been at the scene when fire crews intervened.

THE TOWN

Wednesday: Burkhardt apologized repeatedly to the people of Lac-Mégantic as local residents stood nearby, heckling him. He said he understands the “extreme anger” the derailment has provoked, adding that, “if I lived here I would be very angry with the company, too.”

Previous statement(s): The chairman expressed his regret about the disaster several times this week, but also his trepidation about the anger he would face upon arrival in Quebec. Burkhardt said he had received threats and hate mail, and at one point joked on the TVA network that he feared he’d need a bulletproof vest in order to safely tour Lac-Mégantic.

THE FUTURE

Wednesday: Burkhardt announced that while MMA will no longer allow trains to be left unattended, his company has every intention of continuing to run freight through Lac-Mégantic. “Later, we’ll clean up all the wrecked cars and build track back and start to run trains through here again,” he said.

Previous statement(s): On Tuesday, Burkhardt told The Gazette that MMA has already decided to move its crew-transfer location to Sherbrooke, about 100 kilometres west of Lac-Mégantic. He also said that his company would support the planning and construction of a rail bypass to avoid running trains through Lac Mégantic, calling it “an excellent idea.” He didn’t specify whether he intended to re-route the tracks from Lac-Megantic’s downtown core.

Compiled by Monique Muise

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